Football in late fall is full of rich traditions, from the Thanksgiving day games to the college bowls to the snow-filled clashes for playoff position. It’s a time of pageantry, beauty and brutality, the full expression of football’s finest drama bookended by parades — the Macy’s and the Rose Bowl’s.
For the Dallas Cowboys, though, another tradition takes hold when the calendar strikes 12: a recurring nightmare of epic collapse.
Dallas’ December demise has become a natural and predictable phenomenon, like the migration of Canadian geese or the sudden proliferation of temporarily employable fat white-bearded men in America’s shopping malls. Bill Parcells couldn’t prevent it, nor Wade Phillips, and now Jason Garrett finds himself with the cold bony hand of December gripping his shoulder, and guiding him toward another offseason of misery.
It started in earnest in 2006.
2006: Dallas enters December with a 7-4 record, first in the NFC East
Jerry Jones was desperate to end his team’s ten-year streak without a playoff win (January comes with its own pitfalls for these Cowboys, as it turns out), and was putting the screws to Bill Parcells, who had yet to get the team over the hump. Jones saddled the veteran coach with Terrell Owens in a make-or-break bid to rebuild their once-dynastic offense. So far it was working, as the Cowboys jumped out to a lead in the NFC East, and featured one of the top scoring offenses in the league.
Dec 3: DAL 23, NYG 20 – A minor disappointment to the betting public, as Dallas failed to cover a 3.5 point line on the road, but a thrilling win nonetheless thanks to the leg of newly signed replacement kicker Martin Grammatica. With the win, Dallas earned a two-game lead in the division.
Dec 10: NOR 42, DAL 17 – Dallas entered this game as touchdown favorites over the Saints, in their first season with Drew Brees at quarterback and former Dallas OC Sean Payton as its head coach. But Payton completely eviscerated his former employers in a massive statement game, using unconventional weapons (such as fullback Mike Karney, who caught two touchdown passes and ran for a third). The Cowboys had won 4 of 5 home games to that point, but found their home mojo utterly destroyed.
This emergent game by the Saints in their first post-Katrina season laid the groundwork for a Super Bowl run three years later. It also prompted Bill Parcells to start actively updating his resume.
Dec 16: DAL 38, ATL 28 – Tony Romo and Terrell Owens connect for two touchdown passes in a rebound game, and for a moment all is right. But the Philadelphia Eagles, which started the month 5-6 and are quarterbacked by Jeff Garcia in relief of an injured Donovan McNabb, keep winning and are now just a game behind in the East.
Dec 25: PHI 20, DAL 7 – The Cowboys had scored at least seventeen points in every game so far on the season, and entered this game as a touchdown favorite at home. But a Jim Johnson and Steve Spagnuolo-led Philadelphia defense put the clamps down on Romo, and earned tiebreaker rights for first place in the division.
Dec 31: DET 39, DAL 31 – If there was a cure for the Cowboys’ malaise, surely Jon Kitna and the 2-13 Detroit Lions would have it, right? Wrong. Playing for nothing but pride, the Lions shredded the Cowboys’ defense and completed their December collapse.
While Dallas would back into the playoffs as a wildcard, they would go on to lose in predictably heartbreaking fashion to the Seattle Seahawks.
2007: Dallas enters December with an 11-1 record, first in the NFC East
If the Cowboys felt ground down by Bill Parcells’ grating sideline presence, and by their collapse of the year previous, it looked as though a palpable weight had been lifted from their shoulders playing for the easy-going Wade Phillips. The Cowboys raced out to an unstoppable 11-1 start, four games ahead of the Giants with four to play. They coasted into December fresh off a defeat of the 10-1 Packers, and looked to finally be ready to break their playoff loss streak.
Dec 9: DAL 28, DET 27 – It was a too-close win for a team favored by 11 on the road, but it did at least avenge last year’s gut-wrenching loss to these same Detroiters, and push Dallas to 12-1.
Dec 16: PHI 10, DAL 6 – Another troubling loss to Philly at home in December, showing that despite their improved record they still had no answer for a relentless pressure defense. At 12-2, there was little superficial reason for worry, but the true fragility of the Cowboys started to show.
Dec 22: DAL 20, CAR 13 – While not a good team, the Panthers had proven to be a dangerous home opponent, having just knocked off playoff-worthy Seattle the week before. Still, Dallas was deemed a 10.5-point road favorite, and disappointed bettors yet again by letting up after building a 17-7 first half lead. Even at 13-2 and a first-round bye secured, this team seemed to be missing a killer instinct.
Dec 30: WAS 27, DAL 6 – With Terrell Owens nursing a sore ankle and seemingly nothing to gain, Wade Phillips ended his December Summer Camp by resting his starters and essentially punting this game.
Despite this strategy, a very well-rested Cowboys team ended up falling to the wildcard Giants in the divisional championships, two weeks later. Those Giants went on to pull off the greatest Super Bowl upset of all time, while the Cowboys sat at home and tried to figure out what the hell happened.
2008: Dallas enters December with an 8-4 record, second in the NFC East
The Cowboys had lost their championship aura to the Giants in January 2008, then watched as Eli Manning and company used the following season as their victory lap. While Dallas again got off to a good start to the season, they couldn’t match the Giants’ 11-1 start. However, with a midseason trade for Detroit WR Roy Williams sure to pay off any time now (ha!), the Cowboys were hopeful that they could flip the script on last year’s champs.
Dec 7: PIT 20, DAL 13 – Dallas held up well against the eventual 2008 champs, building a 13-3 lead through three quarters, but then came their now-ritual offense and defensive collapse. Ben Roethlisberger drove the Steelers to ten points to tie the game, and then Tony Romo threw a brutal interception to give a jubilant Steelers team the go-ahead score. The Cowboys had seemingly collapsed from contenders to pretenders in the span of just a few minutes.
Dec 14: DAL 20, NYG 8 – Romo gained a small measure of revenge, and briefly restored his reputation with a mistake-free, two-touchdown performance that knocked the Giants down a peg. It was also their first December home win in three years, and only their second covered spread in eleven December games. At 9-5, the Cowboys’ playoff hopes and chances for absolution were still very much alive.
Dec 20: BAL 33, DAL 24 – Baltimore and Dallas slugged it out for the first half in Texans Stadium before the Ravens started to pull away. Romo rallied the Cowboys late and brought the team within three points late in the fourth quarter, but another stunning defensive breakdown doomed Dallas: Trapped deep in his own end, LeRon McClain burst through the line for a game-clinching 82-yard touchdown run.
Dec 28: PHI 44, DAL 6 – At 9-6 in a weak NFC, Dallas still had a legitimate shot at making the playoffs. But first they would have to solve Philadelphia’s blitz-happy defense, and second they would have to shake off the stink of so many disappointing late-season losses. They did neither in a complete collapse on every side of the ball. Philadelphia romped past Dallas to make the playoffs, dooming Wade Phillips’ team to a January at home.
2009: Dallas enters December with an 8-3 record, first in the NFC East
A deeply disappointed and disruptive Terrell Owens was jettisoned, Roy Williams was an unmitigated bust, but still the Dallas offense (coached by Jason Garrett) was able to recover thanks to the dependable Jason Witten and the emergence of second-year receiver Miles Austin. Once again, Dallas started the season on a roll, and looked ready to make a break from their December past. But this year they got ready to face a brutal stretch of games, including three games against playoff contenders. Were they destined for another year of disappointment?
Dec 6: NYG 31, DAL 24 – The December show opened with a familiar refrain: a bad game against a division foe that found Romo and company playing catchup all game long. The Giants were now a mere game behind, and ready to play the spoiler role again.
Dec 13: SD 20, DAL 17 – At this point, shouldn’t the Vegas oddsmakers know better? If you make the Cowboys home favorites in December, you’re asking for an upset loss. This is so widely known by now that there’s no way the sportsbooks can be making money off these games. To their credit, this was a very good San Diego team that arrived in Dallas, but the pattern seemed to be setting in. How would this team respond?
Dec 19: DAL 24, NOR 17 – Wade Phillips’ team had to come off these disappointing losses and travel to New Orleans to face the 13-0 Saints, the fully realized incarnation of the Sean Payton-Drew Brees team that had undressed them two Decembers ago. This time, the Cowboys played the spoilers, jumping out to a 17-3 halftime lead and playing just enough second-half defense to keep the Saints at bay.
Dec 27: DAL 17, WAS 0 – Coming off the heels of that performance, Demarcus Ware and a fired-up Dallas defense completely shut down a bad Redskins team (yes, I know how redundant that sounds).
For an encore, the Cowboys took the fight to Philadelphia in Week 17 and again in a playoff rematch, outscoring Andy Reid’s team by a combined 58-14 in the two performances. While they lost to the Vikings in the divisional championships, at least the playoff losing streak was finally over. Perhaps now they were ready to take the next step forward.
2010: Disaster Year: Dallas enters December with a 3-8 record, worst in the NFC East
Whatever steps forward this team was going to take in 2010, they took about a billion steps backward when Tony Romo had his collarbone shattered in October. The team was already out to a 1-5 start and Wade Phillips had gone from last year’s hero to dead man walking status. Jerry Jones finally relieved him of his duties after eight lifeless games, giving the reins to Jason Garrett, and the ‘Boys showed a little spark of life under the new coach. However, any hope for a recovery rested on the shoulders of backup quarterback Jon Kitna.
Dec 5: DAL 38, IND 35 (OT) – Two struggling former powerhouses met in this game, and the visiting team came away with the win, dropping Indianapolis to 6-6. While the Colts were able to rebound and win out to reclaim their division, the malaise that they had shown up to this point did a lot to foreshadow their fall to winlessness in 2011.
Dec 12: PHI 30, DAL 27 – Division-leading Philly had to work harder than the pregame point spread (-3.5) suggested, but they were able to put a feisty Dallas team away with a 13-point fourth quarter. (If the Cowboys were somehow able to play defense for a full four quarters, there’s really no telling how differently this streak might have turned out.)
Dec 19: DAL 33, WAS 30 – An unnoteworthy matchup of two bad teams lifted Dallas out of last place in the division, but it also put an end to a brief 4-game streak of December spread covers.
Dec 25: ARI 27, DAL 26 – In the strange days before the NFL realigned into eight divisions, Arizona and Dallas were both members of the NFC East. (Further strangeness: the Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints and St Louis Rams, all of whom are east of Dallas, played in the NFC West.) In those days, these Arizona games were like a ninth home game for the Dallas faithful, who traveled in great numbers into the desert. So there is more than a little satisfaction any time the Cardinals can steal a win back from the Cowboys on their home turf. Even in a stinker of a game that faced John Skelton against Jon Kitna in a battle of the backups.
2011: Dallas enters December with a 7-4 record, first in the NFC East
With a healthy Tony Romo and a newly responsible Dez Bryant taking over primary receiver responsibilities, Dallas overcame some early uncertainty to roll into December with a slim hold on first place in the division. Just win out against a surprisingly soft schedule (the only team left to play with a winning record are the Giants, who they face twice) and the playoffs are yours. But those old ghosts just won’t go away…
Dec 4: ARI 19, DAL 13 (OT) – All the familiar hallmarks of a Dallas December were in full effect: a quick starting offense that lulled itself to sleep, and a defense that played good ball for three quarters. But this time they threw a new wrinkle into the equation: icing their own kicker before he could kick the game-winning points. While the referees sat on their whistles, Dan Bailey lined up and kicked a 49-yard field goal through the uprights. Then the zebras had to tell the world that it didn’t count. Naturally, Bailey missed the retry, and a short pass from Kevin Kolb to Larod Stephens-Howling turned into a backbreaking sudden-death touchdown.
Dec 11: NYG 37, DAL 34 – More shenanigans with timeouts and field goals affected the outcome of this one, which officially handed control of the division over to the men in blue. Once is a fluke, but twice is a trend, adding yet another bizarre chapter to this long and sordid history of failed Dallas Decembers.
Coming up: tonight’s matchup against the Bucs, then another chance for the Eagles to play December spoilers on Christmas Eve, then the season finale against the Giants in New York. Maybe this year is the year they can reverse this curse. If so, it has to start tonight.
